Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com published a Jan. 30 article by Frank Gaffney defending retired military official Jerry Boykin against efforts to remove him from prayer meetings in Ocean City, Maryland (not successful) and West Point (successful) due to his extreme anti-Muslim views. Gaffney complained that the "threat" is that Boykin "might be allowed to exercise his constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech."
But as Right Wing Watch points out, no one is questioning Boykin’s right to say whatever he wants to say about Muslims -- just where he says it. Further, Gaffney has engaged in the same sort of behavior he deplores when it's used against Boykin. From Right Wing Watch:
If Gaffney really believes that groups protesting Boykin’s appearance at West Point are actually stripping Boykin of his right to free speech, then Gaffney is a serial opponent of the First Amendment under his standard.
Last year, Gaffney demanded that the American Conservative Union disinvite Suhail Kahn of Muslims for America from the Conservative Political Action Conference. He also called on CPAC to give the boot to Grover Norquist, who has done advocacy work in the past with Muslim-Americans including Kahn, labeling both of them threats to the conservative movement and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, Liberty Counsel’s Awakening 2011 conference, Gaffney condemned the conference for allowing Norquist to speak there and said that he made it his “personal burden for the past twelve years” to warn conservatives against joining with Norquist, saying, “I must tell you I think this is time to bring it to a stop”:
[...]
Therefore, if Gaffney thinks that asking a conference to disinvite a person from speaking at a conference is an attack on the “constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech,” then Gaffney himself has been one of the biggest opponents of the freedom of speech.
CNS won't be mentioning any of this, of course.
